Go to any PGA Tour event and take a look at the leaderboard. There are names that appear to leap off as if lighted by neon.

That will particularly be the case this week at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open, which is one of the most blessed events on the tour’s regular-season schedule. If you’re popular among the fans, you’re probably playing at Torrey — the notable exception being that precocious kid from Northern Ireland.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson grew up playing these municipal courses as kids, and between them they have 10 professional victories at Torrey. Masters champ Bubba Watson, with his circus-like game, loves the place and has won here. So does Brandt Snedeker, the defending champ and current holder of the FedEx Cup title.

And because he grew up less than an hour away in Murrieta, Rickie Fowler is a Torrey devotee. He may not have a bunch of wins yet, but don’t tell that to the squealing packs of teen-aged girls who lined up for autographs last year. Some of them probably didn’t see a golf shot, but they could tell you what color Fowler was wearing that day.

The point is that you’ve got plenty of star power options when you arrive on the grounds this week. That is a given. The question is: Do you want to swim with the rest of the school, or find a different atoll in a vast ocean?

If you choose the former, no complaints here. We in the media certainly tend to do the same thing.

But what I’ve also learned over the last dozen years is that there are so many other players worthy of following if you give them a second thought. There are 156 golfers in the field this week, and that means 156 very unique, often fascinating stories about how they got here.

Remember that in the NFL there are 60 players on the rosters of 32 teams. That’s 1,920 players, or more than 10 times the number of golfers who hold their cards on the PGA Tour. It is a rare gift and opportunity that lasts as long as you perform. You don’t get Jared Gaither money to sit in a hot tub.

Just on Sunday, we had 41-year-old Brian Gay win a playoff in the Humana Challenge. A year ago he was playing so badly he probably never imagined he could win again. He beat Charles Howell III in a playoff. Howell was the Next Big Thing when he came out of college, but now he’s 32 and tears up a little when he considers one more lost opportunity. The poor guy only has only two wins and 14 career second-place finishes.

When players perform spectacularly — and it might only be in a single week — we stumble into learning more about them.

Last week it was James Hahn, a 31-year-old rookie who tied for fourth on Sunday with an eagle on the last hole to shoot 62. Hahn was raised in the Bay Area on a driving range in Oakland that his father owned. He got booted off the team at Cal in his senior season for self-described “extracurricular” activities and quit golf to sell women’s shoes.

If you want to see one of golf’s true characters, get a gander at Andres Gonzales. He looks like he should be in the cast of “Storage Wars” — long black hair, Fu Manchu mustache. On the same week Watson won the Masters last year, Gonzales prevailed wire-to-wire at the Web.com Tour event in San Jacinto to get his tour card back. He has been hilariously stalking Woods for several years with tweets like, “@TigerWoods You missed out last night on the bowling!”

For a story to touch your heart, it doesn’t get much more compelling than Erik Compton. Where else in professional sports can you watch a competitor who has had not one, but two heart transplants. Compton plugged his way through six rounds of Qualifying School to be here.

Great stories. Inspiring stories. There are a bunch out there on tour. But you won’t find them marching in the Woods Brigade.